🔗 Binding Skills

In order to be cast, skills need to be bound to specific skill slots. There can be at most one skill bound to one skill slot. Each skill slot corresponds to a different keybind, or key combo. There are multiple ways to bind skills:

• you can either let the players choose their keybinds through the /skills GUI,
• enable/disable the editing of keybinds and hard-code the keybinds (like on Wynncraft, for instance),
• enable/disable the binding of specific passive skills altogether,
• or use commands to bind skills to skill slots.

For example, a skill bound to skill slot n1 could be cast by pressing the [1] key (or combo Left-Right), while the skill bound to skill slot n2 could be cast by pressing [2] (or by performing combo Left-Right).

Skill Slots

Skill slots are class-specific, which means that classes can have a varying number of skill slots, as well as different skill slot properties. For instance, magic-oriented classes like Mages, Wizards or Paladins could have more skill slots than melee-oriented classes like Warriors or Brutes.

To edit the skill slots of a class, open up the class config file and look for/create the skill-slots section. Each entry under this config section corresponds to a single skill slot.

# classes/mage/mage.yml

skill-slots:

  # First skill slot
  '1':
    name: "Skill Slot I"
    lore:
      - "&eReduces by &610% &ethe cooldown of"
      - "&ethe skill bound to it."
    can-manually-bind: true
    unlocked-by-default: true
    formula: "<ACTIVE>" # Can only be bound to active skills.
    # This decreases by 10% cooldown of bound skill
    skill-buffs:
      - 'skill_buff{modifier="cooldown";amount=-10;type="RELATIVE"}'
  
  # Second skill slot
  '2':
    name: "Skill Slot II"
    lore: 
      - "&eGives &640 &eadditional damage to"
      - "&ethe skill bound to it!"
      - "&eThis slot is for Aqua/Fire active skills."
    can-manually-bind: true
    unlocked-by-default: true
    formula: "(<AQUA> && <ACTIVE>) || (<FIRE> && <ACTIVE>)"
    # This gives +40 Damage to bound skill
    skill-buffs:
      - 'skill_buff{modifier="damage";amount=+40;type="FLAT"}'
  #........

Let's go over each parameter one by one.

Name and lore

Options name and lore are used to define the item name and lore of your skill slot as seen in the /skills menu.

Other Options

can-manually-bind determines if the player is allowed to manually bind skills to this slot. It is set to true by default. When set to false, the only way to bind skills to this slot is by using an admin command.

unlocked-by-default is set to true by default. When set to false, this skill slot needs to be unlocked, just like a skill in order to be usable. Until it is unlocked, the player cannot bind any skill to it.

Formula

Each slot also has a formula (specified by the formula entry) which determines the set of skills that can be bound to it (the set of compatible skills).

TIP

Comment out this line or set it to "true" to disable this option. If no formula is specified, all skills will be compatible with this skill slot.

This option can be used to create things like Passive skill slots, where the player can only bind passive skills. If other skill slots are Active-only, you can make sure the player has at most one passive skill.

The only limit is your imagination. Here are some examples of formulas you can use.

Formula	Usage
<passive>	Only passive skills
<active>	Only active skills
<active> && <fire>	Only active skills with category fire
<active> && (!<fire>)	Any skill that does not have category fire
<passive> || <fire>	Only passive skills with category fire
(<passive> && <fire>) || <active>	Only passive skills with category fire, OR active skills
<firebolt> || (!<water>)	Only skill named firebolt, or any skill that does not have category water

These formulas support skill categories and support boolean algebra operators: !<aaa> (logical not), <aaa> && <bbb> (logical and), <aaa> || <bbb> (logical or).

The following code defines a skill slot where the player can only bind the skill named FIRE_STORM. Note that this is the skill ID, and not the skill name.

skill-slots:
  '1':
    ...
    formula: "<FIRE_STORM>" # Only targets skill "Fire Storm"

The following code snippet defines a slot where the player can only bind skills that are active and have the category fire:

skill-slots:
  '1':
    ...
    # Same as "<active> && <fire>"
    # Only targets skills with category "fire", that are active
    formula: "!<passive> && <fire>"

The following code snippet can be used to define the categories of a skill. Note that this syntax is to be used inside of a MythicLib skill config. Please read this MythicLib wiki page to learn how to define the categories of a skill.

MY_CUSTOM_SKILL:
  ...
  categories:
  - "CATEGORY_1" #Referened with <CATEGORY_1> in a formula
  - "CATEGORY_2"

Skill Buffs

Skill buffs can also be granted to skill slots. A skill buff is a specific buff applied on one specific parameter of a set of skills, for instance +10% Damage or -10% Cooldown. These skill buffs will only apply to the skill bound to that skill slot. Find more information about skill buffs in this wiki page.

This feature can be used to create, for instance, Fire slots or Water slots which provide additional damage to lower cooldowns to a specific set of skills (which can be specified using skill formulas, see above).

Skill buffs provided by skill slots should be placed under the skill-buffs config entry of the skill slot config.

Hardcoded Keybinds

If you plan to have a limited number of skills per class, you might not need to give your players the option to choose their skill keybinds. On some RPG servers, the skill keybinds, or combos, are hardcoded and cannot be changed by the player.

In this case, go to your class config file and edit its skill slots:

# classes/mage/mage.yml

skill-slots:
  '1':
    name: "Skill Slot I"
    lore: []
    #...
    hardset: FIREBALL # <========================
  
  # other skill slots....

By setting the hardset parameter to a skill ID, like FIREBALL (or whatever skill you have configured for the class), you forcefully bind that skill to this skill slot for all players.

Unlocking Skill Slots

By default, all skill slots are unlocked. If not, they can be unlocked using the following command, where <slot_number> starts at 1 (not 0).

/mmocore admin slot lock <player> <slot_number>
/mmocore admin slot unlock <player> <slot_number>

Locked skill slots are not visible in the skill GUI.

Default Config for Skill Slots

# classes/mage/mage.yml

skill-slots:
  '1':
    name: "&aSkill Slot I"
    unlocked-by-default: true
  '2':
    name: "&aSkill Slot II"
    unlocked-by-default: true
  '3':
    name: "&aSkill Slot III"
    unlocked-by-default: true
  '4':
    name: "&aSkill Slot IV"
    unlocked-by-default: true
  '5':
    name: "&aSkill Slot V"
    unlocked-by-default: true
  '6':
    name: "&aSkill Slot VI"
    unlocked-by-default: true

Binding Active Skills

Since active skills are proactively cast by players, they all require to be bound to a specific skill slot before being used.

Players can bind skills to skill slots from inside the /skills GUI. In the skill GUI, available skills are displayed on the left. Click the skill you would like to bind (the GUI name should update), then on the rightside, click the skill slot where you'd like to bind your skill. Once an active skill is bound, you can cast it.

Passive Skills

Binding Passive Skills

By definition, passive skills do not require any proactive action from the player to be cast. For this reason, you can choose to make them automatically take effect as soon as they are unlocked, without the need to be bound to a skill slot.

This behavior can be defined at the plugin level for all skills using the following option in the MMOCore config.yml file:

# When set to true, passive skills must be bound in order to take effect.
# When set to false, unlocked skills will take effect right away.
# This is only the default behavior for skills but can be overridden by specifying true/false to
# the needs-bound field in the class skills section.
passive-skill-need-bound: true

This default behavior can be overridden for specific skills in the class config file using the needs-bound field. If needs-bound is set to false, this passive skill will be permanent, meaning that it will always take effect as soon as it is unlocked, without the need to be bound. Conversely, if needs-bound is set to true, this passive skill will require binding in order to take effect.

In the following example taken from the classes/mage/mage.yml config file, the skill POWER_MARK is a passive skill that does not need to be bound to take effect.

# classes/mage/mage.yml

skills:
  POWER_MARK:
    level: 5
    max-level: 30
    ...
    needs-bound: false # Does not need to be bound to apply its effects

The default MMOCore config files for the Mage class features three Passive skill slots where players can only bind passive skills.

Using commands

If you don't want players to bind their skills and keybinds, you can use the following command to bind skills to specific slots instead.

/mmocore admin slot bind <player> <slot_number> <skill>
/mmocore admin slot unbind <player> <slot_number>

The bind command will work, even if the designated skill OR skill slot is not unlocked by the player. If the designated skill is not unlocked by the player, the skill will be bound but the skill will remain locked, and the player will get a friendly error message when trying to cast it. If the designated skill slot is not unlocked, the skill will be castable but the skill slot will remain locked.